FCA asks those who invested in London Capital & Finance to provide info for its investigation

Together with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) continues to investigate actions relating to the sale of mini-bonds and ISA bonds by London Capital and Finance (LC&F).

Today, the FCA addressed all LC&F investors asking them to complete a questionnaire to provide more information about the circumstances of their investment as well as any potential loss.

The FCA notes that that many investors have already sent in information to both teams, through a number of channels, but it asks all investors, including those who have sent in information before to complete this questionnaire.

The questionnaire asks for information about investors’ circumstances at the time they decided to invest in LC&F products, and for details of their investments and losses. There are some detailed questions so investors are advised to have any documents they need to hand, and set aside 20-30 minutes to complete the questionnaire.

Investors are requested to complete the questionnaire by October 31, 2020.

The information obtained from the questionnaire will help the FCA and SFO investigations into any wrongdoing by those connected to LC&F.

LC&F’s estate will be dealt with by the Administrators, who will assess LC&F’s assets and put forward proposals as to how they will proceed with the administration. The administration is being dealt with by Smith and Williamson.

The request for information is made shortly after the FCA made it clear that some performance bonuses will be deferred as a result of the delayed investigation into LC&F.

As FinanceFeeds has reported, the deadline for the report by Dame Elizabeth Gloster has been pushed until Monday, 23 November 2020.

During the period under review, from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020, the SMR (Senior Managers Regime) Directors were eligible to be considered for a performance-related award up to a maximum of 35% of average base salary applying during the previous year, the FCA explains. Non-executive directors were not eligible to be considered for an award. Performance bonus decisions are made by the Remuneration Committee in February each year.

During 2019, following a request from the FCA Board, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury directed the FCA to carry out an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of LC&F.

This investigation is ongoing and, as a result, the Remuneration Committee has decided that performance bonuses awarded to voting members of the Executive Committee in respect of the year under review should be deferred until the report of the investigation has been issued. The Committee will then decide whether it is appropriate for the bonuses to be paid at all, in whole or in part.